


Devoured By Fire

by Kolivans (arka_r)



Series: tumblr drabbles [4]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Hurt No Comfort, M/M, Please Don't Hate Me, References to Carl Sagan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-20
Updated: 2017-03-20
Packaged: 2018-10-07 15:23:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 822
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10363509
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arka_r/pseuds/Kolivans
Summary: prompt: I’m a firefighter and you live near the station I work at and we talk/flirt with each other a lot. One day me and my team get called to put out a fire and it’s your home ablaze. You don’t make it out.





	

There was a nice little apartment building near the station, but that wasn’t what caught Shiro’s attention. No, it was someone who lived there, one person in particular who caught his attention.

 

The person was someone that Shiro thought was around his age, with dark hair and alien-themed t-shirts that never failed to amuse Shiro whenever he saw it. They had so many succulents and hanging plants on their balcony, so whenever Shiro saw them, it was usually when they were watering the plants.

 

It wasn’t until a few weeks later Shiro gathered enough courage to greet the cute mysterious person.

 

He found out their name first when they shopped in the same store. Keith –that was the cute guy’s name. He was two years younger than Shiro and was currently taking a Master’s degree in astrophysics.

 

“What, so you can meet the aliens?” Shiro chuckled. Keith was wearing a black shirt with the words ‘I WANT TO BELIEVE’ printed on it.

 

“Aliens are real”, Keith told him with such conviction that Shiro couldn’t help but believe it too.

 

Sometimes, when Shiro had night shifts, he saw the window to Keith’s apartment was still brightly lit. Keith occasionally would go out, bundled up in thick sweaters, and just look up to the sky before coming back inside. When Shiro brought it up the next time they were meeting, Keith would immediately launch on a sciency rambling about the stars and galaxies.

 

When Shiro asked why Keith loved the stars so much, this was his answer:

 

“We began as wanderers, and we are wanderers still. We have lingered long enough on the shores of the cosmic ocean. We are ready at last to set sail for the stars.”

 

Shiro blinked owlishly, certainly not expecting _that_  as an answer.

 

Keith sighed. “Carl Sagan?”

 

Oh, so he was quoting someone.  The name sounded familiar, though. “Isn’t that the science guy?”

 

“The science guy”, Keith snorted.

 

“Not everyone is an astrophysics genius working on his Master degree”, Shiro shrugged. He loved science as a kid, still loved it even now; but that was before he found he liked to help people more as a firefighter.

 

“Not a genius”, Keith said. “Just someone who has a lot to proof that an orphan can send people out to space one day.”

 

That sounded like an old wound that Shiro didn’t want to poke.

 

Somehow, Shiro’s reading material began to shift into Stephen Hawkings and Carl Sagan. He just wanted to know what made Keith so fascinated by the stars. It got so much worse on one particularly bad night when he couldn’t save everyone, he couldn’t sleep and read [_The Pale Blue Dot_](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Carl_Sagan#Pale_Blue_Dot:_A_Vision_of_the_Human_Future_in_Space_.281994.29) instead, which turned him into a sobbing mess. Somehow, it was comforting, being reminded about how insignificant all his failures, all his worried, and all his mistakes were in the grand scheme of things.

 

“That’s why you want to go out to the stars, don’t you?” Shiro asked Keith one day. “We’re just… so small. And the universe is so big.”

 

“Yeah…” Keith looked up, a small smile on his lips.

 

Keith’s eyes were like a black hole and Shiro was a space object, unable to pull away from its gravity. He found himself falling into its event horizon and for one, he welcomed it.

 

 _Fuck_ , Shiro thought with an epiphany. _I’m in love with him_.

 

Their kiss was chaste and soft, like they both were testing the waters. But then, Keith kissed back with the intensity of a fire and Shiro was its fuel. Like a pulsar devouring a brown giant star.

 

He forgot that a star devoured by a pulsar would be left with nothing but its core.

 

There was a fire near the station and his unit was called, but it wasn’t until he actually got into the location that he realized where he was.

 

Keith’s apartment building was being devoured by fire.

 

His unit tried to put the fire out, but it was hard. There were just so many flammable things that it would be dangerous to go inside. They saved as many as they could, but Shiro couldn’t find Keith everywhere.

 

Maybe he was out, Shiro didn’t know. He kept on praying to anyone, _anything_ , that Keith was outside, maybe doing late night grocery run or something–even though he knew that Keith had never done that. Keith had asthma, the night air was bad for him. That was the reason why he didn’t smoke.

 

Eventually, they managed to put out the fire and Shiro was frantically searching the remnants to proof that Keith was _not_  there, among the casualties. But then his team carried out a body that looked so unmistakably familiar– and he just knew, even before the forensic confirmed his identity.

 

Shiro should have known that any object that got too close to a black hole would be completely torn apart before even entering the event horizon.

**Author's Note:**

> ... i'm still in that mood. why do i love making these two suffer so much, i don't even know.........
> 
> as usual, please direct your prompts and yells to [my tumblr](http://hello-my-stars.tumblr.com).


End file.
